In Court

Making Clint Eastwood's day, a jury in San Jose, Calif., on Sept. 29 found that the 70-year-old actor does not have to pay damages to a woman who alleged that he did not comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. In 1997 Diane zum Brunnen, who suffers from muscular dystrophy, sued Eastwood, complaining that his Mission Ranch Inn in Carmel, Calif., was not fully accessible to her wheelchair....

On Sept. 27 in Manhattan, a judge sentenced Jaid Barrymore, 54, mother of actress Drew Barrymore, to 10 days of community service for illegal possession of a weapon. Police found a loaded gun in the handbag of Barrymore mere last May after warning her for plastering flyers advertising a rock band on the walls of a construction site.

Back Home

Cindy McCain, 46, wife of ex-presidential candidate John McCain, had total knee-replacement surgery on Sept. 29 in Arizona and says she feels "pretty good."...

Actor Billy Bob Thornton, 45, left L.A.'s Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on Sept. 27 after a weekend stay for what his flack described as a viral infection....

South Carolina politician Strom Thurmond, who at 97 is the oldest senator in U.S. history, blacked out at a restaurant in Alexandria, Va., on Sept. 30 and was released from Walter Reed Army Medical Center on Oct. 2 after treatment for an undisclosed ailment.

Recuperating
Two days after sustaining a "soft tissue" injury during rehearsals for Stars on Ice, 1998 Olympic figure-skating golden girl Tara Lipinski, 18, had surgery on her right hip in Fort Lauderdale. Reps for the skater said that the Sept. 22 injury was not career-threatening.

Triumph
Viewers of the CBS reality series Big Brother overwhelmingly voted the $500,000 first prize to Eddie McGee, 21, a tough-talking Long Islander who lost his left leg to cancer a decade ago and is now a junior at the University of Texas at Arlington. He beat out civil-engineering student Josh Souza, 23, and New York City lawyer Curtis Kin, 28, on the final night of the show, Sept. 29.

Deaths
Ex-security guard Frank Wills, 52, who changed history in 1972 when he noticed a stairwell door taped open at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C., died on Sept. 27 in North Augusta, S.C., of a brain tumor. In the 1976 film All the President's Men, which chronicled events leading to President Nixon's resignation, Wills played himself.

Hospitalized
Complaining of sharp back pains he sustained at home on Sept. 25, David James Elliott, 40, star of CBS's JAG, went to an L.A. hospital for a couple of days of R&R.

Penal Matters
On Oct. 3 a three-member panel denied parole to Mark David Chapman, 45, the man who murdered John Lennon in 1980. It was Chapman's first attempt to gain release from a maximum-security prison in Attica, N.Y.

Uncoupled
After 37 years of matrimony, Anne Anka filed for legal separation from singer Paul Anka, 59, in Los Angeles on Sept. 29. Citing irreconcilable differences, the 58-year-old former model (and the inspiration for her husband's '70s hit ditty "Having My Baby") asked for unspecified support. The couple have five grown daughters.